Chapter 53
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 53
Chapter Title: A Profound Misunderstanding
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‘I mustn’t let him become arrogant.’
Exceptional talent can sometimes be a poison.
Especially when it leads to conceit.
Nordian resolved to never let that happen to Christian.
He spoke in a deliberately cold tone.
[Now, I will begin the formal transmission of the Dark Demonic Arts. Do not become arrogant, and follow my teachings precisely.]
“Yes, I understand.”
It was the moment he had long awaited.
Christian focused.
[Listen well. These are the incantations of the Dark Demonic Arts.]
Simon, the outsider, tactfully disappeared.
Nordian recited the incantations.
A mere recitation, yet the long, drawn-out incantations took several hours.
“Have you memorized it all?”
To memorize such complex and esoteric incantations—a combination of magi's flow through the blood vessels and magical formulas—after hearing them just once.
But Christian answered calmly.
“Yes, I have.”
Nordian nodded.
He had expected him to have memorized it.
After all, Nordian himself had memorized the incantations in one go during his own youth.
However.
Christian asked an unexpected question.
“Forgive me… but may I ask one thing? I don't understand parts of the incantations.”
[These are incantations you are hearing for the first time, so it is natural not to understand. Ponder them yourself, and ask questions later….]
“No, that's not it. There are parts where the flow of the incantations you recited doesn't align with the rest. I wanted to confirm if I misheard something.”
[!!]
Nordian's face stiffened.
‘How did he know?’
Another one of his wicked habits.
He intentionally teaches parts of the incantations incorrectly.
To make them harder to learn.
Why would he do such an eccentric thing?
‘Though inefficient at first, struggling to wield the Dark Magi helps solidify one's foundation.’
And yet, he had noticed the incorrect parts after hearing the incantations just once.
It was a chillingly sharp intellect.
Nordian, trying to hide his surprise, replied in a stern tone.
[I have made some variations to help you build your foundation. The complete incantations will be taught after your basics are firmly established.]
Nordian rose from his seat.
[Watch.]
He extended his hand.
From the small hand of the young boy's incarnate body, magi as black as pitch billowed forth.
It was the ‘Black Sword,’ a blade formed by expelling magi outside the body.
A power usable only from the 3-Star realm.
To Nordian, an 8-Star Majin, it was a trivial power.
But the Black Sword Nordian wielded was on a different level from others'.
It wasn't just that the power of his magi was strong.
It contained an indescribable subtlety, something even Chris could not yet comprehend.
[This is a single strike unleashed through the Dark Demonic Arts.]
*Swoosh.*
It was a light swing.
Lacking any powerful momentum.
In fact, it had no discernible effect.
It merely cut through the air.
But despite that, a shiver ran down Chris's spine.
It was a dizzying shock, like watching a star flicker in and out of existence.
‘Just now.’
That single swing contained countless forms of darkness.
Red, black, blood, yellow, blue, gray, and more.
Nordian's strike was destruction, death, curse, poison, illusion—it was a distant darkness that encompassed them all.
The Dark Magi that ruled over all darkness.
This was the power of the Dark Demonic Arts, which controlled that Dark Magi.
Meanwhile, seeing Christian's astonished face, Nordian was even more surprised.
‘Huh. He recognized it?’
One can only see as much as one knows.
How many in the Dark Magic House could have recognized the true meaning of the sword strike Nordian had just displayed?
Nordian resolved once again.
‘The usual methods won't do. He requires more difficult guidance.’
A tower built with ease collapses with ease.
Nordian's educational philosophy was that one must overcome adversity from the ground up to ultimately achieve greatness.
‘First, I should make him realize the difficulty of the Dark Demonic Arts.’
Because one must handle countless types of darkness as if they were one's own element, the difficulty of the Dark Demonic Arts is beyond imagination.
Normally, the principle is to guide the student step by step, but…
“I will give you one month. Based on the demonstration I just showed you, practice the incantations on your own. In a fortnight, I will check on your progress.”
And with that, he vanished.
Seeing Merian's flustered reaction beside him, it seemed this was not a normal situation.
However.
‘This must also have some meaning.’
Chris thought to himself again.
It might seem unkind, but surely Nordian wouldn't do this without a purpose.
Just like the first assignment, there had to be some deeper meaning hidden within.
…Although that wasn't the case at all, Christian misunderstood, thinking Nordian had some other intention.
‘Let's do it.’
For the record, there was one problem with Nordian's idea.
Until now, Chris had learned most things on his own.
He had rarely received anyone's guidance.
In other words, he was very familiar with this kind of situation.
No, in fact, there were many times he had learned without even knowing the proper incantations, so this could be considered a very generous situation.
Chris closed his eyes and contemplated the incantations of the Dark Demonic Arts.
At the same time, he recalled the single strike Nordian had shown him earlier.
The true darkness that embraced all other darkness.
Time flew by in an instant.
* * *
A month passed.
“The time has come.”
“…Yes, Lord.”
“By now, he must have realized the complexity of the Dark Demonic Arts.”
“……”
Merian remained silent.
That much was certain.
The Dark Demonic Arts were not something one could master without guidance.
‘However, what meaning could there be in that.’
Merian thought to herself.
Nordian's educational philosophy—that one must experience repeated frustrations amid hardship to ultimately achieve great things.
It was truly an old-fashioned way of thinking.
Christian must have wasted the entire month.
“Merian, do you think my methods are wrong?”
“…No, I do not.”
“Keke, don't deny it. Your thoughts are plain to see. But for Christian, that boy, this is a necessary process.”
Nordian continued his explanation.
“The boy has absorbed over ninety percent of the Sacred Black. He will face a huge wall each time his star-level rises. Therefore, it's crucial to build a solid foundation beforehand. So he doesn't collapse later.”
“……”
“What's important for him isn't speed. It's crucial that he climbs the stairs one step at a time, reliably, even if it's slow.”
Merian said cautiously.
“Christian is in the middle of the Young Lord's examination. To qualify as a Young Lord, he must reach 3-Star within three months.”
“That's impossible. 3-Star in three months? Considering the purity of his Dark Magi, it's absolutely out of the question.”
Nordian answered curtly.
Christian's current achievement was high 2-Star.
No matter how much of a genius he was, having absorbed over ninety percent of the Sacred Black, Nordian estimated it would take at least two years for him to reach 3-Star.
Besides, what did the Young Lord's examination even matter?
Building a solid foundation was far more important than something like that.
“Let's go and see.”
Nordian once again descended into the body of the young boy's incarnate form.
He leaped through space and entered the training ground where Christian was.
[!!]
“!!”
Nordian and Merian couldn't help but widen their eyes, astonished to the point of them tearing.
It was an unexpected.
Unbelievable sight.
Christian was swinging a sword in the air, a blade enveloped in pitch-black magi.
It was the ‘Black Sword.’
A power usable only by 3-Star Majin.
“You… Christian? Right now? Don't tell me you're at the 3-Star realm?”
Merian asked in an astonished tone, and Christian turned his head and spoke to Nordian with a bright face.
“Thank you, Lord.”
[…Thank me?]
“Thanks to you, Lord, I was able to overcome the 3-Star wall much faster than expected.”
[…What?]
Chris's voice was filled with genuine gratitude.
“Didn't you intentionally teach me incorrect incantations to help me attain enlightenment?”
[…….]
Nordian was speechless.
He couldn't understand what the boy was saying.
Christian's nonsense(?) didn't stop there.
“It wasn't just the incantations. The single strike you demonstrated. Wasn't that to show me the enlightenment needed to reach 3-Star?”
No.
The demonstration Nordian had shown then had nothing to do with the enlightenment for the 3-Star realm.
What in the world did creating a Black Sword have to do with imbuing a single strike with all the elements of darkness?
But Chris continued to spout this incomprehensible story.
“As you said, Lord, the 3-Star wall was incredibly high. But I found the answer in the teachings you gave me and was able to overcome it faster than expected.”
So, what teachings on earth had Nordian supposedly given him?
Chris recalled the past month.
It wasn't easy at first.
As expected of a supreme demonic art, learning it alone was no simple task.
The incorrect incantations mixed in were especially obstructive.
Incantations that seemed designed to make him suffer.
But Chris focused on those very incantations.
‘There's no way he would have inserted these incantations without a reason. They must be intended to help me in some way.’
The incantations the Old Lord had mixed in were disrupting the smooth flow of Dark Magi.
Why would he do such a thing?
What was his intention?
Then, he recalled the demonstration the Old Lord had shown.
The image of a single sword containing all the elements of darkness.
And then, the answer(?) began to reveal itself.
‘What's important isn't the efficiency of controlling Dark Magi. It's the process of embracing all elements of darkness as my own, even if it's a bit slower.’
It was like floating a leaf in a cup of water to make one drink slower and avoid choking.
It was the Old Lord's way of telling him not to rush to learn how to handle Dark Magi, but to focus on accepting darkness itself.
Christian followed the Old Lord's will.
The Dark Demonic Arts were, after all, the power to wield the various elements of darkness.
He recited the incantations, concentrating on the meaning of each one.
After repeating this for who knows how long?
A flash of enlightenment pierced his mind.
A thought, as if all types of darkness were aligning on a single path.
Of course, he hadn't become capable of imbuing a single strike with all darkness like Nordian.
He had only felt a vague notion.
But in that moment, Chris's realm took a leap forward.
1-Star was the stage of accumulating magi in the body.
2-Star was the stage of expelling magi outside the body.
3-Star was the stage of giving magi form outside the body.
Therefore, each realm required a different kind of enlightenment.
For 3-Star, one had to take the ‘formless’ energy of magi and give it ‘form’ outside the body.
It was similar to solidifying waves of light into a solid-like shape.
In other words, it was impossible by conventional principles.
To accomplish such a feat, one had to shatter their existing notions of magi, establish a new perception, and learn to handle magi from a different perspective.
However, this becomes much more difficult as the purity of the Dark Magi increases. Pure darkness is that much harder to control.
Ordinary individuals could succeed in creating a Black Sword with just a ‘vague’ enlightenment, but with high-purity Dark Magi, a more complete re-establishment of perspective was necessary.
For Chris, who possessed one hundred percent purity, it went without saying.
But the moment he gained enlightenment through the clues Nordian had left behind, his perspective on handling magi was completely redefined.